During the past 18 months I have really dove head first into making content for Pinterest and primarily Pinterest! In this time I've grown from about 75 to just shy of 20,000 followers. I've also begun participating in the Pinterest Earn program and earning money for my content making. It's been an incredible experience so far and I cannot recommend enough creating for Pinterest.
With that all in mind, here's my 20 tips for creating your best Pinterest content ever, with the goal of getting into Pinterest Earn!! Please feel free to comment any questions you may have at the end of the post.
Throughout this post I've also included some of my most popular images on Pinterest to inspire your next Pinterest posts!
1. Create specific username. Unlike IG or Tiktok, you can have a much longer username on Pinterest and I do believe this helps your account with recommendations to new followers. My full username on Pinterest is Snugzmeow | Disney and Beach Lifestyle.
Try it out by adding your username and some key words that fit your content!
2. Upload EVERYTHING you have to begin with. One of the requirements for Pinterest earn is to have 150 saves per month. The easiest way to get saves going is to have a lot of content on your Pinterest page to get recommended as people search for different key words.
In my growth/grind I posted as many as 10 idea pins a day! I have close to 5,000 pins on my page and that is almost entirely all my own content. Granted about 2000 of those pins are static images from my blog that I save as traditional pins when I post.
The more content you have the more you will get recommended!
3. Don't engage in follow for follow with accounts advertising it. Pinterest won't count these as authentic follows. I make sure to interact with all your accounts as you post so no worried about it from this group, plus were small and not doing it in a spam like way. Some people literally have "follow for follow" in their usernames.
4. Make your Idea Pin descriptive on every level to appear in search results more. Always add all 10 hashtags. Write out a caption with key words. Use a title with keywords. Use your name in titles to improve brand SEO. Use text to describe what is happening in the pin if there is no voice over.
5. Watermark content can't count for Pinterest Earn, but you can use it to grow and save time. If you're in your 250 follower grind (one of the requirements of the program) you can mass upload all your Tiktok content without removing the watermark. I see Tiktoks with watermarks on my feed all the time. Just note that down the road content with watermarks cannot count towards Pinterest Earn Goals.
6. Holidays and events trend super early on Pinterest. People are thinking about holidays a full month (or several) before you actually begin preparing in your home. The earlier you can share that content, the better. Halloween content began trending for me in JUNE!
7. Static photos can count towards Pinterest earn goals, but they prefer video. Some goals require video. I try to do about a 1:3 ratio photos to videos.
8. Follower growth is slow at first, but then really picks up if you are consistent, so don't give up!! POST EVERYDAY! I cannot emphasize this enough. POST EVERYDAY Y'ALL.
9. Weekly trends can only be viewed on the browser and they are about a week delayed from the time those searches are most popular. They are still helpful for content ideas though.
10. Consistency is everything on Pinterest and you honestly can't post too much. Trust me, I have tried posting too much. The website will physically block you if you're posting two much at once, but it only asks you to take a break and the timer is not even 24 hours. They absolutely encourage sharing A LOT of content.
11. Only Idea Pins count in the Pinterest Earn Program. I still share traditional pins when I create my blog posts, but that is the only time I create them now, Otherwise it's all idea pins! Everyday they will promote that you have up to 5 new idea pins. You can upload more than 5 times, but it will only ever show 5 idea pins as your "story" for the day if people are searching for creators. Because of this I try to post at least 3 times a day, but no more than 5 to maximize the visibility of content.
12. Idea Pins in the Pinterest Earn program only count towards goals in the month you create them. For example if you create a pin on August 1st and it gets 100 saves by August 31st, but 200 saves by September 14th, you will only be rewarded if you submitted the pin in August for the initial 100 saves. They do not pay you for saves outside the goal period. So if a pin blows up after the goal period has ended, no such luck
13. Aim to create content that people have to save. Create text that's important to remember within the pin like instructions or price info, that way people will be more inclined to save the pin to remember the information. Pinterest seems to care about saves above all other metrics.
14. Connect and verify your website for a verified website checkmark (soft verification). There is still a verification program on Pinterest, but everyone can get this checkmark, but connecting their website and following the verification instructions. I call this soft verification because Pinterest does have verified check marks that they assign to high profile and official accounts like any other social platform!
15. Most Pinterest creators have blogs or personal websites. However, you can just direct people to your Instagram, I have seen some Disney creators do that very successfully! I did create blog after things started to pop off on Pinterest for me though and I get about 1,500 visitors a month just from Pinterest no advertising!
16. Timing when sharing your Idea Pins matters! I've found my most successful Idea Pins have been shared between 4pm - 8pm pst. This may be due to the fact the largest portion of my audience is in California and these are the times they are browsing the app. I suggest looking at the app and seeing your largest time zone and testing uploading during the evening time for that group.
17. Reply to all your comments! A great way to grow your community on Pinterest is to engage with your community as much as possible! I've noticed a lot of people upload to Pinterest and then never follow-up with comments or questions. Be as helpful as possible in the comments to people asking questions, and they will be more likely to save the post to remember your feedback in the comments!
18. Study the style viral of Pinterest thumbnails, and make your cover images in the same style. There is is definitely a clear "Pinterest aesthetic" you can see in the cover images of the most popular pins on the app. Most popular pins have some kind of descriptive title.
I like to use the native text features for Idea Pins because I believe this will improve SEO. Your cover image should be clear, colorful, and eye-catching! Bright and colorful, or warm color tones tend to perform better on Pinterest than dark imagery. The best format for Idea Pins (or standard pins) is the 2:3 aspect ratio, 1000 x 1500 pixels.
19. Organize your content into specific Pinterest boards. The more specific and niche the BETTER! This is because if someone is creating their own themed board, they may got into your themed board and save a ton of your content to their board. This is excellent for the performance of your Idea Pins, and really keeps the lifespan of the Pin going for months, even years, beyond uploading.
Within your Pinterest boards, you can even organize into my specific folders, and I definitely recommend this for boards with over 40 images/videos.
20. BE YOURSELF!! I feel like this is the best advice for most things in life, but especially in content making! Just remember there are so many people sharing their content every second of the day, so sharing your unique perspective and experience with the world is what will make people engage with, and maybe follow you!
Lean into all the things that make you a weirdo and proudly show those interests and quirks. It may feel a bit unnatural at first to be so open with perfect Internet strangers, but content making is a great way to discover more about yourself while sharing with the world.
